Superhydrophobicity, bubble stability, and heterogeneous nucleation

All real surfaces exhibit a certain level of topographical or chemical heterogeneity: the present workshop is concerned with the interaction of liquids with such real surfaces. Recently, the availability of powerful micro/nanoscale characterisation and fabrication techniques has fostered the rapid development of surfaces with engineered wetting properties. These technological developments, in turn, call for a deeper fundamental understanding of wetting phenomena happening across different scales of length and time. Furthermore, surface and interfacial phenomena are often at the boundary of diverse communities, including physics, engineering, chemistry, and material science. Examples of the complexity of wetting in real scenarios are superhydrophobic surfaces where the microscale details of the chemistry and of the topography determine the macroscopic behaviour of the surfaces (self-cleaning, superlubricity, repellency, and nucleation).

The workshop brings together leading and emerging scientists in the fields of superhydrophobic surfaces, theory of wetting, sonochemistry, and cavitation to identify the common modelling and theoretical challenges. The speakers are selected among renowned experimentalists, theoreticians, and simulators. The informal atmosphere, together with extended poster sessions is intended to promote the interaction of young researchers (graduate students and post-docs) with leading scientists.

The workshop aims at stimulating discussion about the open problems in the wetting of real surfaces. Therefore, inspired by the CECAM workshop format, there will be an afternoon session devoted to discussion on Thursday 26th June from 17.30-19.00. After a brief and informal introduction of the state-of-the-art, all participants (regardless of age!) are invited to contribute their ideas to the discussion. We propose, for the moment, four topics:

To get to the Faculty from Fiumicino airport, the quickest way is to take the "Leonardo Express" train to Termini station. You can as well catch a taxi or a coach at the airport (for details check on the airport's website).
Once in Termini, take the metro B line in direction "Laurentina". You can get down at the stops "Cavour" or "Colosseo" that are both within walking distance from the Faculty (see the map above).

Social Program

The scientific program of the workshop will be tight. However, we don't want you to come back from Rome without a flavour of the Eternal City.

Thus we propose a special visit to the Forum of Augustus on Wednesday, the 25th of June at 22.00. On the occasion of the 2000th anniversary of the foundation of the Forum, there will be a spectacular "multi-projection show of lights, images, short films and animation" on the walls of the Forum with "scientifically and historically detailed information". You can have a look to the event online. The ticket price is 10 or 15E depending on the number of participants.

All participants are also warmly invited to take part to the social dinner that will take place on Thursday the 26th of June starting 20.00 at the restaurant "Naumachia". The restaurant is within walking distance from the venue, in via Celimontana 7. If there are any special food necessities (e.g. vegetarian meals) you are kindly invited to write us so that we can arrange the details with the restaurant. The cost of the dinner is 27E, all included.

It would be greatly appreciated if you could confirm in advance your presence to the two events by writing an email to the email address superhydro2014@uniroma1.it. However, it will also be possible to confirm directly at the workshop, at the registration desk (where you will confirm your presence and receive the book of abstracts).

Accommodation

Being right in the city center there are a lot of options for accommodation. A few suggestions follow, but the list is of course not exhaustive...